HiRez Poll Harrison, George - ALL THINGS MUST PASS [Blu-Ray Audio (Dolby Atmos)]

[castironshore]

The first time I played it, the voices in my head were suggesting that there are artifacts from however they de-Spectorized some of the tracks. It may just be that I'm confused by the reduced reverb, but I can't help but feel that something odd is going on. Like maybe what would be normal attack-decay is missing some of the decay, if that makes any sense.

I'm not convinced that I'm right and I don't find it actively annoying, but I do feel like I hear...something.

I'm vaguely reminded of the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams: The Video Album on DVD: I've got it on stereo CED and analog stereo Laserdisc and it sounds normal on both. I never had the digital Laserdisc reissue, so I can't speak to that, but the DVD, though it has a lossless PCM track, sounds absolutely horrible. It's been noise gated or something. Every time the sound should naturally get quieter or decay or whatever you want to call it, it doesn't gradually fade away, it suddenly falls off a cliff and then just as rapidly comes back up again. It's as if someone is "augmenting" the natural rise and fall by twiddling a volume control. It's hopelessly unlistenable, and I'm someone who'll often put up with a lot if I like the music.

I had the same experience re: decay not sounding quite right on the 5.1. Anyone know to what degree the reverb was originally baked into the individual tracks? Trying to determine how much of it was digitally extracted.

 

[Myro]

I had the same experience re: decay not sounding quite right on the 5.1. Anyone know to what degree the reverb was originally baked into the individual tracks? Trying to determine how much of it was digitally extracted.

My understanding is that Phil Spector's reverb is in fact "baked in". Phil was going for his famous wall of sound. George Harrison really didn't like what had been done, but it couldn't be taken out. It was only with recent technology that they were able to remove some of it, albeit with mixed results.

 

[jimfisheye]

Pretty sure I commented on this upstream. I know I liked the 5.1 mix better than the original. Much better fidelity over the wall of mud thing and all that stuff.

This is my 2nd weird choice for an Atmos decode to listen to.

I like this mix a lot! Full bombastic sound with a lot of discrete separation at the same time. The height channels have a full range mix and provide half of the delivery of the kick drum and bass guitar for this mix. That's weird maybe a little but it ticks a box for it and this all works in a great bombastic way.

My tops are speaker managed to the subs here but the effect seems to work as intended.

Haha found my old review. I wonder if the 5.1 was a fold down of this. It would explain a lot if the tops were dumped into the fronts in that mix. Who knows. This sounds good and seems intentional finally!

Huge and well deserved upgrade over the original!